After the devastating and inhumane conditions detained individuals at the border have experienced in recent few years, groups of architects and organizers are increasingly speaking up against design projects relating to border control. As Fast Company's Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan points out, "someone designed each of these spaces, of course." 

Since May, over 52,000 people have been detained at these border control sites, and close to 1,000 children have been separated from their families, according to the article. Ethical practices between architects and large firms vary, unfortunately. Border security has grown to be a highly lucrative market. However, several members of the design community are taking a stand to boycott any projects involved with the Trump administration's plans for detainment centers. 

In July, The American Institute for Architects (AIA) issued a statement discussing the buildings at the border. Since their statement was published, many members of the architecture and design community shared their opinions and criticized the AIA's response. While the AIA focused on addressing and the laundry list of building code violations in these centers, the Architecture Lobby sharply responded to the topic of design's role at the border. "A detention center where toddlers have been separated from their families is not a healthy building, regardless of fire safety, ventilation, and code compliance. It is not the health of buildings that is at stake today, but the health of our society and democracy."

Campbell-Dollaghan point out, however that, "not all architects agree that boycotting work at the border is the ethical way forward," highlighting the fact the issue of what is and isn't ethical and how the architecture community should involve themselves in Trump's horrific approach to "managing" the immigration crisis continues within the design community. 

A spokesperson from the Architecture Lobby who spoke to Fast Company left no doubts in their response to the issue. They said, "When a building is part of a human rights violation, designing 'better' or 'worse' conditions in that building cannot make up for the underlying, fundamental violation. Asylum seekers must be welcomed, not detained—and not detained in a place that is seen as 'good design,' because the detainment itself is the problem. There is no outsmarting or out-designing the societal structures that permeate institutions; engaging in good faith with the entities commissioning these projects, in hopes of sneaking in good ideas or convincing a client of a better way, is playing a losing game. The clients could care less."